The Ultrawife’s`brother and his girlfriend were in town last night and staying the night. For some reason I thought that they would be leaving early and so I was up at 5:00am to get out the door and have the run done by 7:30am or so. Turns out I had it wrong and they were just as asleep when I got back as when I left, and it took another hour before they even woke up ahead of a day to be spent shopping in Lyon. Oh well, at least I was out the door and getting the run in early, right?

So what’s the big news in the title of this post? Well, the Ultrawife and I are having a baby, a new brother or sister (still to be confirmed which…) for the Ultraboy. The baby is due in August which more or less puts the Berlin Wall Race off the schedule for this year, and I’ll need to see if there is a way to defer that run until 2020. It probably also means I can look for another race to do in its stead…maybe another shot at the Ultratour du Leman which is in September? For now it is not clear, but considering the reason for the reassessment of the season, I don’t mind not knowing all that much.

This morning I set out to do about 20K but didn’t really want to do a lot of hills. I have Lurdunum coming up on Friday night and that is going to be very hilly, so I don’t really need the extra elevation just yet. Still, hills help break up the miles so I decided I would do at least a couple, starting off with the climb at Saint Foy to take me from there to the edge of the Old City.

The wind was fairly ripping along the river when I headed out and I was happy to make the turn out of the cold at Saint Foy to head back towards Lyon and something a little warmer. The false flat/descent back towards Lyon is always a nice couple of kilometers, and the fact that the road was blocked off for roadworks made it quiet, too. With nearly 10K done at this point, I had the choice of turning towards the city or turning left to head up the hill and maybe hit some other, less familiar streets. I took the additional climb, crested the top, and then turned towards Point du Jour and Tassin.

There were a couple of other runners out around here but not too many. The wind was getting rather cold and I had had a storm warning on my watch even before leaving. I didn’t have a rain jacket and didn’t expect the rain to arrive for a few more hours, but it did feel like the weather was getting ready to change. I had on the latest Ten Junk Miles long run – and at more than four hours (!!) for a podcast it is definitely a long run – and was enjoying the talk of winter ultra running even if it is not something that I would ever really get into.

Near Tassin I turned towards Vaise and tried to make my way in the right general direction. I had to stop a couple of times for traffic lights and, each time, I checked my position on the map and ensured I didn’t get too lost. I eventually dropped onto the right road, headed for the center of the ninth arrondissement, and then cut through Valmy with about 16K under my belt. I wanted to find another 4K and the run home directly would be about 3K…so I got creative.

I headed up the hill towards Fourviere and when the trail ended, would my way back down the hill again to the river. A skip away from home to a bridge, across the river, and then down onto the berges and I was heading home. With a few hundred meters to go I pulled back up to road level, ran past the market stalls and breathed in the fresh food and roasting chickens there, and turned down the final narrow street towards the Place des Jacobins. I was done, I was heading inside, and I was feeling good.

A great afternoon with the Ultraboy out of the city, in the snow, and throwing snowballs at each other.

It was a great hike and we had fun starting near the Mont Thou and then descending down towards Saint Romain. It wasn’t always easy and there were a few slips along the way, too, for both of us, but it was great fun and we enjoyed the fresh air. Of course, there were snowball fights and while I thought I would come out on top (experience and throwing power), the Ultraboy seemed to do better with his sneakiness and aim.

Heading back into town, the Gilets Jaunes were protesting (again) and the police were fighting them in the street (again) and the tear gas was being deployed all over the place (again). Far better to be out of the city and in the snow, I reckon, than holed up in this city among the violence.

A little while back my team working on a submission to an award program, with the first selection by the jury narrowing the field to four finalists. Today the four finalists appeared in front of the jury to present their pitch, and a couple of hours later my team and I, plus the CEO? where there to see us announced as the regional winners! Great day, great feeling, and now we’re off to the national final in March where we’ll be one of eight fighting it out for the big prize.

The run was a pretty simple one, in the end. I made my way out of the office and along the Rhone heading towards the Ultraboy’s fencing club where I had to collect him at 6:00pm. It’s not a long run and I am never under a lot fo time stress unless I am late leaving the office which today I was not. I turned the legs over quickly enough, stopped to snap a picture of the slowly setting sun over the river, and then closed things out in the sixth arrondissement so I could grab a couple of things from the corner store before collecting the Ultraboy.

I am not in at work early this morning. Instead, I’m working from home for a couple of hours before a medical appointment and then heading in to the office after that. The good thing about this slower start is that I could get out of bed at a reasonable hour (well, 5:00am but without feeling rushed!) and head out for a run that wasn’t quite as fast as what I might feel like I am forced to do to make it to the office, into the shower, and to my desk on time. Cutting out that commute makes things a lot more relaxed, and it meant I could enjoy the time on my feet this morning a little more.

We had snow here in Lyon yesterday and while there were a couple of snowflakes still falling on the Croix Rousse this morning, it was nothing compared to the heavier snow we got yesterday morning. Mostly it had melted away by the time I headed out from home and up to the Croix Rousse, but when I had threaded my way through the streets to Cuire and hit the hillside trails on the way to the river, I was happily surprised to find some remnants of the snow still lying on the trail.

I would my way down to the bottom of the trail and the hill, cut across the face to another climb up, and snapped a couple of pictures of the snowy trails along the way. At the top, I headed back towards Lyon proper and took in a couple of side streets, a wrong turn or two that led me to dead ends, and a couple of different descents that would eventually take me to the side of the river Saone.

A straight shot along the river back to the city center as all that was left, and I clicked stop on the Garmin near Terreaux before walking the last couple of hundred meters back to the apartment with Greg Gutfeld’s podcast in my ears and a small on my face. It was a good start to the morning and I was feeling very relaxed heading into another day at work.

I’ve been working on improving my knowledge of WordPress and the whole website management side of things, or at least what I can manage to learn of it by myself. Cleaning up a few domain name issues the other night, I did a quick search and noticed that dylan.run was available as a domain name, and it was cheap. I bought it and thought I would do a quick redirect to my site…and then I had another idea.

What if I could transfer all of the running content over to dylan.run and keep dylankissane.com for something else?

Turns out there were a few steps to go through, but I managed.

Now while I don’t claim that my way of doing things is the best or the easiest, it does work (as you reading this might suggest) and that’s the main thing!

Here’s what I did:

Buy the domain name

Add it to my hosting account

Add a certificate to make sure it was secure

Install WordPress

Customize the WordPress install with my preferred theme, plugins, and such things

Export the content from DK.com

Import the content into d.run

Fix the minor issues with the import (mainly related to internal links to DK.com…)

Strip the DK.com site back to a single page with a couple of buttons (check it out)

Write this blog post!

Now some of those steps are 30 seconds long (buy the domain!) and others took well over an hour (stripping back the other site + the design there) but I managed it all in a couple of hours of work. I didn’t do it without seeking out help along the way (thanks, Elegant Themes Knowledge Base, Namecheap knowledge base, and a couple of cPanel how-to guides) but I did manage to do it all by myself.

And I’m quite proud of that.

Now this little corner of the web is unlikely to be found by many people, and there’s a lot less SEO juice in it that the DK.com site and its long site history. Still, the name fits and I like the idea of having all the running stuff here while leaving DK.com for other things. Yeah, yeah, it’s a lot of inside baseball, but I feel a little smarter tonight compared to the start of the week and I wanted to share – hence this post!

Up (the hill), Over (the hill), and In (to the office) – so went the run commute this morning.

As I mentioned yesterday, the plan for Monday and Tuesday was to get about 10K in both days. The Monday turned up a little short after a very long day in the office but this morning I was sure that I could get the distance in without being too stressed. It turns out that I didn’t sleep well at all but, even so, I rolled out of bed to get ready when my alarm buzzed and headed off to get my exercise in before the work day got started.

The direct route into the office that I use when I drop the Ultraboy at the bus in the morning is between four and I’ve kilometers. To get my commute out to about ten kilometers I either need to run past work and circle back, or run away from the office and then turn to head back where I need to be. Not wanting to run with a headlamp this morning, I figured I would go with the second option which meant I could stick to the well lit roads and paths in the city proper. My choice, then, was between heading down the river and back again on mainly flat roads, or to head up to Croix Rousse and get a little bit of elevation in early.

I went with the latter.

The start up the hill was consistent, I guess. I wasn’t going all out as I moved up through the Jardin des Plantes, up the Pentes, and then topped out on the eastern side of the Croix Rousse. I took a turn just before the top to weave through the streets and make my way back down to the Rhone river, and then crossed over for the straight shot along the berges towards the office.

I saw a few other runners out which was encouraging because, despite the low temperatures (0°C to 1°C), it seems people are getting out and about. At one point I passed one guy who seemed to be saying something to me and so I pulled out my earbud to hear the question, “How far are you running this morning?”.

That’s strange because (a) I didn’t know the guy, and (b) it was in English and this is France, but I told him I would do about 10K and he wished me a good morning. I said the same, and continued on, but it was a little strange to hear that before 6:30am, I can tell you.

I closed things out at a bakery close to the office where I grabbed a warm croissant and then headed to work for a shower and to get warm. I’d been aiming for 20K in the first two days of the week, and I had ended up with 19K instead. Not bad considering the weekend running I did, and a nice way to keep the momentum going.

I had planned in advance to run home from work and then run in again tomorrow morning, hoping to get in 10km or more each way. Yet as my last meeting didn’t finish until late and then – after getting changed and ready to go – it was about 6:45pm, I wasn’t going to be able to fit in the slightly slower, slightly longer route home via the hill at Saint Foy and Fourviere.

And so I called the Ultrawife, told her I would be heading home a little more directly, and started out the door.

Now if I run straight home it’s about five kilometers or so. That would be fast but I wanted something a little longer. So, to get started, I headed into the Parc de Gerland for a two kilometer loop down to and along the river. At the Pont Raymond Barre I crossed over the river and followed the land until it, well, ran out…and then I turned back and followed the Saone upriver towards home.

There were more than a few other runners out in the cool (but not freezing) early evening. I passed a couple, and nodded hello to a couple more coming he other way as I wound towards Confluence. Feeling good and keeping a nice steady tempo pace, I ran around the marina and then back to the river again. I figured it was about 2.5K back to home now, and I set out to finish off what would be about an eight kilometer route back home.

When I got into the city center, I crossed the Saone again at Saint George, then followed my nose down to the courthouse. I only had to stop for traffic at the Pont Napoleon, and then I finished off with the footbridge back to the second arrondissement and the last couple of hundred meters to the Place des Jacobins…and I was done.

In a little less than two weeks time it is the first hit out of the season for 2019: Lurdunum.

This is an annual fat ass run hosted by the Lyon Ultra Run club which traces a route up and down the hills of the city, through the traboules and back streets, and onto some of the trails that are hidden around the city. This year I am playing the role of a monitor, helping guide the 250 runners through the streets and keeping everyone safe. As a result, we got together this morning for a run-through of the course – it is kept secret from the runners before the night! – and I got a nice long, hilly run in.

Strava being what it is, sharing the run on there would mean a whole lot of people would find out where the run is going to be well before the run kicks off. Hence, though I recorded the run on my watch and uploaded it to Strava, I had to set the privacy level to ‘Only Me’ so that nothing leaks. As well, I can’t really write too much about it here except to mention a few things based on the Lyon Ultra Run description:

The route will not be revealed in advance, you will discover it on D-day: we like surprises and there will be some! A first in the history of Lyon’s urban walks. The track is 25 km long and 600 m of climbing. We will not reach 1000m climbing this year but let’s face it, the course concocted by our friend Nicolo is still as shapely and testing as ever! Count 4 to 5 hours of running including breaks. That said, you don’t have to do the entire course…

Is it about 25K long? Yes!

Is there 600 meters of climbing? Yes!

Did it take 4-5 hours? Not this morning, but with the aid station and the regrouping breaks, I think it will take about 4.5 hours on the night.

Overall it’s a great course, mostly runnable, and there were a few sections I did not know and will be keen to explore again soon. I’m looking forward to playing my part on the night on 1 February!

There’s tear gas in the air, a helicopter hovering overhead, and smoke obscuring the streets around the apartment? Must be Saturday.

Another week, another Gilets Jaunes protest here in Lyon. And in Paris. And everywhere else in France. This is the tenth weekend in a row that the protesters are out in the street. It comes after the President’s latest effort to try and rein in the anti-government feeling by announcing that he was open to suggestions from around the country on how to run things. He proposed to listen to the people and have them tell the government what should be done.

The people, of course, responded by (a) reflecting that the reason they elect people is to lead, not to ask for directions, and (b) explaining that if the President really was open to advice, he could start by resigning.

Not exactly what President Macron wanted to hear.

It came a few weeks after he tried to calm everyone down by backtracking on his original idea of a small rise in the diesel fuel tax. Show a bit of weakness to the French people, though, and you’ll regret it: they sensed that being out in the streets and causing trouble could actually work, and so continued.

Anyway, ten weeks in and the protests are now as much a part of the weekend here in central Lyon as the army patrolling the street for Operation Sentinelle (now into its fourth year of deployment inside the country) and those university brass bands playing renditions of Bruno Mars and classic 80’s rock.

Heading out for a run, I fought my way over the bridge and – under the helicopter’s gaze – fought my way up the hill to Saint Just and only the trail I ran for the first time a few weeks back on the advice of Philippe. This time, though, I followed it all the way to the end, a nice wide trail and a touch of brown and green in the midst of a big city.

Finding myself at Tassin, I turned for Vaise and the Saone again, then headed down to the last bridge in the ninth arrondissement where I crossed over and headed up the Rue dYpres. It’s a steep climb and one I ran yesterday, too, but it was fun to get up while I laughed along with the East Coast Trail and Ultra Podcast and their latest episode.

At the top I turned for home, passing through Croix Rousse and then dropping down to the Place des Terreaux where I closed things out to avoid tryin to run through the streets crowded with police, the army, tourists making the most of their visit, and the shoppers trying to take advantage of the January sales. I was home shortly after, into the shower, and then out to the lounge room to catch up on the news (short version: the protests continue) and catch my breath before heading off to Creed II at the cinema tonight.

I’ve got a couple of decent runs planned for the weekend so all I was really aiming for with this evening’s effort was a chance to let out the stress of the week and listen to a good podcast. Lucky for me I got out of the office on time, was out on the road ready to run shortly after, and the latest episode of Ten Junk Miles dropped during the afternoon – perfect!

I headed out along the Saone heading upriver and not quite sure where I would end up. I know I wanted to do about 50 to 60 minutes and I also knew I didn’t want it to be too hilly as, come Sunday, I would be hitting a LOT of hills and stairs. I considered an out and back along the river, considered looping back down to Perrache, but finally I pegged for the slight rise up the side of the hill to the cemetery and then fitting in some additional distance on Croix Rousse somewhere.

The somewhere, it turned out, was the running track at Duplat.

It’s not the first time I have run there but it is the first time in a long time that I’ve been running past the gate of the track when it was still open. Generally early in the morning the place is locked up, and later in the evening it is, too. About 6:30pm, though, and all is good, so I headed onto the track for about two kilometers a little over halfway through the run. The track itself is only 200 meters around so it is easy to pick up a rhythm and keep it. You are lapping every 50 seconds or so, and with the podcast on I settled into a nice old pace and held it.

I managed ten laps (fastest at 0:50, slowest at 0:57, and most between 0:52 and 0:55) before pulling back out to the road and taking the descent down into the city center. A little bit of negotiating the pedestrians crowding the sidewalk, dodging a couple of cars and the odd electric scooter, and I clicked stop near the Monoprix to go and find some Asian food for dinner – bon appetit!